


Reflections of the Jewel

by Benfrosh



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Timeskip, reading a diary, the gang is all here as well but not enough that i think it's worth tagging them individually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25592200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benfrosh/pseuds/Benfrosh
Summary: Brighid has been reincarnated once more, and as is tradition, she's restoring her memories by reading her diary. But something seems off about it as she's reading through - the latest entries describing her Driver Mòrag seem unusually terse. And when she reaches the end of that particular story...
Relationships: Hikari | Mythra/Homura | Pyra/Rex, Kagutsuchi | Brighid/Meleph | Mòrag Ladair
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	Reflections of the Jewel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cobrah](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cobrah).



Brighid paced around the halls of the palace as she flipped through the pages of her diary. This was the hardest part of each new incarnation; at least, according to her diary it was. While she was lucky to be so privileged as to have such extensive first hand documentation of her past lives, it also came with a set of expectations upon her - expectations of performance, of ability, of precision of execution. If the Jewel of Mor Ardain were seen to be stumbling around lost in her very own city, it would reflect poorly both on herself and on the Empire - the Republic, she corrected herself, as the careful edits in her diary's to-do list had reflected. So as to avoid such a fate, she had, several incarnations ago, assembled a to-do list of things to learn and take care of within the first twenty-four hours of acquiring her diary. 

Her current task - learn where everything in the palace was. She had several pages that were dedicated to maps of the palace from previous generations, but she got the impression from reading that they never were particularly instructional, merely historical interest. Humans were too prone to change to leave something as simple as floorplans stable for more than a few years. And judging by some of the updates she made to her diplomatic protocols tips and tricks, _far_ more than just floorplans had changed since she had started writing the diary. 

As she turned the corner on the last hallway in the Palace of the Senate, she flipped to the next page of her diary. It told a thrilling tale - one that determined the fate of an entire world, and of the brave souls that fought to save it. Of the hero named Rex, and how The Aegis had come back after hundreds of years. Of the honest-to-goodness friends she had made along the way. It told relatively little of her Driver, unusually - she had always left fairly detailed descriptions of her interactions with her Drivers before. Perhaps this... Lady Mòrag wasn't a particularly interesting person? It seemed unlikely that she would be awakened by someone worth so little note, but she could hardly rule out-

"Wait, that's it?!" she inadvertently blurted out, startling a poor guardsman down the hall. 

In the middle of the climactic sequence, as she and the others were climbing the World Tree, the diary just. Stopped? She could hardly believe it - one sentence finished and the next sentence was not there. She knew that this couldn't be the end of the story, the date was barely within five hundred years of the present date, and she obviously had to have come back at some point to update the to-do list. But there was no indication of it continuing, either in the book or of a followup book. 

Something had to be wrong. Were pages torn out? No, she concluded as she turned it over. The binding was perfectly intact and maintained. Did they forget to give her a second book? That seemed like a cruel joke at best and an implausible level of buffoonery at worst. Was there a second book that was destroyed to cover something up? Then why not edit the first book to hide the evidence? Did she... did she just stop writing? That would be _even more buffoonish!_

Her goals for the day were completely sidelined now. She had lost over half her memory and no guide, even one written by her, could overtake that issue in priority. Where could she start though? No one alive was there when she was writing this. If it was censored, then everyone who censored it was also dead. She could ask her new Driver if someone he had missed something in the inheritance protocols - no, that seemed impossible. Fiachu may look timid on the surface, but she would not have been part of any plot or attempt to deceive. When she handed her her diary in the ritual to acknowledge Brighid's rebirth, her face showed she wholeheartedly believed in the meaning of the ritual. She wouldn't have done anything, and she wouldn't know anything. So that left...

Nothing. She had no leads. She screamed at the cold uncaring ceiling, angry at her powerlessness, her blue flames surging around her in a stunning lightshow as the poor guardsman ran as fast as his stiff legs could. 

For a brief second, she panicked - to burn up what memories she had would set her back even further than she already was. But thankfully, she or a previous Driver had the foresight to prevent a tragic accident, and the flames danced over the cover of the diary without so much as singing the material or the pages inside. As she collected herself and cooled back down, the flames danced to and fro as they settled down, before finally puttering out in a final wriggle leaving the book no worse for the wear. With a sigh, she opened the book up once more. Maybe there was a clue in the text she hadn't spotted-

 _Dear Brighid,_ the diary now said, in bright blue text. _I hope it didn't take you too long to find this message._

If she had her eyes open, she would have blinked in surprise. Where once had been her careful, precise print in clean black ink was now covered by another layer of fanciful cursive in blue, sparkling ink, reminding her more of a schoolgirl's diary than one of her position. But the writing was still, unquestionably, hers. She knew this as firmly as she knew her own name.

_As you have probably saw, I'm going to be running out of pages in this book soon. I have twenty, maybe thirty pages left, and a lot more to write. I confess that with everything going on, I had fallen a bit behind in keeping up with journaling, and I knew I had to fit more in somewhere - I didn't dare risk getting a second book I might possibly lose, so with Pyra and Mythra's help I came up with this. It's an invisible ink that should only show up when heated by specifically our flames. I won't be writing about it in the body of the diary proper though, as there's a few things here that I'd like to keep secret between me and - well, me. I trust our Driver, of course, whoever they may be when you read this, but there's some things that would just make them uncomfortable, and I'd like you to be there when they read about it._

Brighid had been pacing the halls back to Fiachu's room as she was reading, but on reading this decided to sit down to take her time while she was by herself. 

_You may have noticed I hadn't written much about Lady Mòrag up to this point, and if I do it correctly I won't have as I finish out the rest of the text. When I was writing those earlier entries, there were a few things I could not straighten out within myself, and I didn't dare commit anything to text until I sorted out those feelings. One day, however, I realized something. When journeying with Rex and Pyra, I saw in them the same thing that I saw Lady Mòrag with every day we had spent together._

_It was love. I was, and am, hopelessly in love with Lady Mòrag._

Brighid covered her mouth as she gasped. Oh, now **this** was interesting.

_I'm working on my sketching practice so I can hope to render her appropriately. Tora's been helping me with that, but I haven't dared tell him why yet. I get the feeling he'll be insufferable when he finally finds out, and I can't risk her finding out from his loose lips._

Brighid chuckled, and continued reading further. Here was the true story of Lady Mòrag - how they first met, and how Lady Mòrag had impressed Brighid with her picture perfect frame and figure, and how Lady Mòrag was the model of imperial discipline. How Lady Mòrag relaxed when with friends, and how Lady Mòrag got adorably competitive when anyone dared challenge her. How Lady Mòrag made Brighid feel comfortable, and how Brighid helped Lady Mòrag feel comfortable in turn. She had never read anything like **this** when she was reading the earlier entries. Frankly, it was a wonder how she never realized her feelings earlier. Probably all mixed up with her feelings of duty and obligation - Brighid doubted she could ever fall in love with Fiachu, even if she seemed a good, honorable, and handsome woman. Lady Mòrag must have been some woman, indeed. 

_I haven't confessed this all to her, yet,_ the diary continued. _Now is absolutely not the correct time to be bringing this up, and frankly I doubt I'd be writing it all here right now if it wasn't the most important memory I've formed this lifetime. I promise you though: before I die, I will tell her all of this. I promise._

Brighid turned the page to the next overwritten entry, hoping for more, but found nothing. The conclusion to the story that was so rudely interrupted was there, of course. The Architect, Elysium, the new world made through their efforts, the efforts helping civilians move their homes and rebuild their livelihoods in a new more profitable world. But Brighid, bless her burning heart, couldn't help but want to read more about her love story. Seeing herself gush so openly about anyone was absolutely fascinating.

She skipped through more entries that she probably should have spent more time on - the formation of the Republic, Rex's retirement to a quiet village, the death of yada yada yada, until she found the entry she was finally looking for, dated twenty-one months after the first entry.

_Dear Diary. She loves me too._

Brighid smiled from cheek to cheek, her flames softly glowing brighter than usual.

 _It was at a party that Rex, Pyra, and Mythra organized. They invited the whole gang to come celebrate the first year of peace after things had settled down, and I made sure that Mòrag_ \- she noticed the drop of the formal title - _and I had a free day to take off despite everything going on. She happily agreed to go, thank goodness._

_It was a lovely party, even discounting the rose-colored tint it'll always have in my memories. Rex had become a wonderful chef in his free time, presumably learning from Pyra and most emphatically not Mythra, and Zeke brought some lovely wine for everyone. Rex even stole a glass - we all felt he had more than earned it, in the end. Tora revealed that Poppi had a new music player installed, and we all ended up dancing around and letting loose far more than I had anticipated._

_Mòrag never really took too much part in the active partying - everyone was rather making fools of themselves, and while she was gladly here to be with her friends, she still never would be the kind of person to actually cut loose without far more alcohol than we had on hand. I settled down as the night went on, and sat down with her and kept her company. We laughed, we smiled, we chatted with everyone and each other. It was a wonderful time._

_As it got later, something I thought unthinkable happened. Mòrag had, at some point, drifted off to sleep, resting her head gently on my shoulder. My breath was caught in my throat, and does again even as I write this. As close as friends as we had been, this was the physically closest we had ever been, and it amazed me that she felt so comfortable with me as to do this._

_Were it just the two of us, I may have just left it there. Thankfully, it was not, and Nia walked up and, rather firmly, demanded that if I didn't confess to her here and now she would smack me until 'my arse spun off and screwed upon my head'. I don't know how she figured out what I was thinking - I was probably too obviously enamored, loath as I am to admit it. Regardless, with her comment, everyone ganged up on me and agreed that this was the time, all leaving the dining room and moving outside to continue the party while Mòrag slept. Mythra was drunkenly shouting something about 'once a coward always a coward', but I could tell she was trying to encourage me as well in her own way._

_When she woke up, I told her that I had asked everyone else to step out so we could have a bit of time to ourselves so we could have a talk. So we talked, and I did what I could to tell her everything. How I felt, what she was to me, how it all had been building up, and that I didn't know what we'd do in the future but how I wanted to do it with her no matter what._

_And, well, she kissed me._ Brighid couldn't help but giggle at the frankness and simplicity. She flipped to the next entry, and found the sketch she was promised - a bright, steadfast, and beautiful woman, with flowing black hair and a gaze that could cut iron. She felt her heart flutter a bit even looking at a sketch of her.

Continuing forward, she skipped over more stories of their life together. She wanted to know more, of course, but there was one story in particular that she needed to see. The inevitable one that had to come at the end of this. Finally, eighty years further into the entries, she found it.

_Dear Diary,_

_This is the last entry for this Brighid. Mòrag only has a week or two to live. Neither of us is saddened by this - we've had a long and wonderful time together, and neither of us could have asked for anything more. There's one last message the two of us have for you, and I wanted to write it while we were still both able to write it together._

_Mòrag and I have had our life together. We loved each other as much as two people ever possibly could, and we did everything that two people who loved each other could. We have no regrets and could ask for nothing more._

_You may fall in love with someone else in your life. You may not. Whatever you do, don't feel guilty about your choices. Mòrag's life was filled with Brighid in every way, and you shouldn't be tied down by your past. Remember that even if I'm Brighid and you're Brighid, we're not the same Brighid._

_All we could possibly ask is that you live a life that we - you and I - can be proud of._

_We love you, Brighid._

A small puff of steam rose from the floor, as her tears fell onto the heated carpet.

**Author's Note:**

> As Brighid turned to the last page of the diary once more, she realized that the very last page's invisible entry was from her previous incarnation. She had filled the entire book up _again_. Now she was the one who had to deal with it...


End file.
